Chapter 4 #3
Cam put a hand on her slender arm. “Don’t call him off, Evie. I think we should follow him. He seems to be following some scent trail we obviously can’t see.”
Evie frowned but then quickened her pace.
Reassured they were still following, Bruno put his nose to the ground again and kept going.
Cam didn’t take his gaze off the dog, as an uneasy feeling washed over him.
What had caught the dog’s attention? Would Bruno take them to the gunman?
Was the guy who’d killed Skye fourteen years ago hiding out in the woods watching them?
The possibility that the killer was a vagrant, someone who lived in the woods off the grid, rolled through his mind. Dan Johnson? Something like that would explain why he hadn’t found the guy on social media. Maybe Dan had fallen on hard times over the years.
Then again, he couldn’t imagine anyone who was homeless living in the woods this far from food or water.
Besides, the Dan Johnson he remembered would never live in a tent in the middle of the woods.
Dan had been the star football player for their team and had been spoiled by his wealthier than most parents.
Better to remain focused on facts, rather than create fiction.
Bruno darted between two large bushes. Evie frowned and hurried forward. “Bruno, wait up, boy. We’re coming.”
Cam could tell Evie wanted anyone who might be lurking nearby to know they were there. A sentiment he understood, even though he’d much rather sneak up on the killer without a fair warning.
Resting his hand on the butt of his weapon, he followed Evie through the brush. His heart thudded painfully in his chest when he heard Bruno let out a sharp bark.
Had the dog found something? Or someone?
“Evie, stay back!” His tone was sharper than he’d intended, but he couldn’t bear the thought of her walking into a trap.
She ignored him, surging ahead toward her dog. “Bruno!”
Cam ducked and ran to catch up. Then he abruptly stopped when he saw Bruno sitting tall beside a clearing with freshly overturned earth. There were some leaves and sticks scattered across the top, but it was obviously intended to be a camouflage for whatever was buried there.
“No, it can’t be,” Evie’s voice shook with horror. “Please tell me it’s not . . .”
“I don’t know.” He quickly scanned the area searching for a threat. Bruno’s ears were pricked forward, so he didn’t think the gunman was nearby. His gaze landed back on the fresh dirt.
Another grave? It seemed impossible, yet he couldn’t come up with another reason there would be a large area of fresh dirt in the middle of the woods.
“Come, Bruno.” Evie called her dog. Bruno looked from Evie to Cam, then back at the ground as if he expected to be rewarded for a job well done.
The dog’s alert convinced him they needed to know what, if anything, was buried there. Maybe a poacher had come through and killed some animal and buried the entrails to hide what he’d done. Maybe that was how a vagrant killer survived out here.
“Stay back, Evie. I’m going to check this out.” Cam crossed to the edge of the overturned earth. Drawing a deep breath, he bent and used his fingers to pull the dirt out of the way.
At first, he found nothing. Feeling foolish now, he continued digging through the chunks of dirt.
He flinched and recoiled in horror when his fingers felt something soft and squishy. Something was definitely buried there.
Someone? He almost prayed he was wrong as he continued pushing dirt out of the way, revealing what he’d found.
A slender bluish-tinged arm emerged from the soil. He abruptly stood and took two steps back as a horrible scent hit his nostrils.
“Who is that?” Evie’s low voice was full of anguish.
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t tear his gaze from the blue-tinged arm.
Despite the obviously cold and mottled skin, he could see a tattoo of flowers encircling the slender wrist. He might not know who it was, but the victim was a woman.
The arm was too slender and dainty looking with the tattoo bracelet to belong to a man.
And she’d been killed and then buried deep in the nature preserve, the way Skye Gray had been.
The difference being that this was a recent burial since the skin of the arm was still intact. He wasn’t a forensic expert, but he knew this must have been a recent murder.
From the same killer? Had to be. He couldn’t imagine these women were killed by two different people who’d decided to bury them this close together. Okay, maybe they were a few hundred yards apart, but still too close to be a coincidence.
Especially not when Bruno led them directly to this location. Trained K9 or not, Cam was convinced Bruno had latched onto the scent of the killer. And had brought them to the gravesite based on that scent.
“I can’t believe this,” Evie whispered.
“We need to call Detective Rueger.” He pushed the words through his tight throat. Finding this dead body wasn’t what he’d hoped for. He’d desperately wanted to find something concrete that would prove his innocence.
Not something that pointed directly to the work of a deranged serial killer.